Sunni clerics back anti-U.S. violence

Other Sunni clerics call violence unjustified

Oct 19, 2004

For Sheik Mohammad Ali Mohammad al-Ghereri, a Sunni Muslim cleric in Baghdad, the question is no longer whether to tell his followers to fight the Americans, but how to assure that they wage war properly.

“The holy warriors should have a clerical leader with them to advise them on all points, such as how to properly treat the Americans they capture,” he said in his austere mosque in the Iraqi capital’s Zafarenieh district.

For fellow Sunni cleric Abdul Sattar Abdul-Jabbar, the issue is not whether his followers should kidnap foreigners, but which ones. “Isn’t the trucker who brings supplies for the Americans and helps the occupation also part of the occupation?” said Abdul-Jabbar, a member of the Association of Muslim Scholars, the country’s largest Sunni religious grouping. “I think so.”